Many automation applications employ motion control systems to control machine position and speed. Such motion control systems typically include one or more motors or similar actuating devices operating under the guidance of a controller, which sends position and speed control instructions to the motor in accordance with a user-defined control algorithm. Some motion control systems operate in a closed-loop configuration, whereby the controller instructs the motor to move to a target position or to transition to a target velocity (a desired state) and receives feedback information indicating an actual state of the motor. The controller monitors the feedback information to determine whether the motor has reached the target position or velocity, and adjusts the control signal to correct errors between the actual state and the desired state.
Designers of motion control systems seek to achieve an optimal trade-off between performance and system stability. For example, an aggressively tuned controller may result in a system that tracks a desired position with high accuracy and a fast response time, but may be rendered unstable in the presence of system noise and uncertainties. Alternatively, tuning the controller more conservatively will improve system stability, but at the expense of performance. Ideally, the controller gain coefficients should be selected to optimize this trade-off between performance and system stability. The process of selecting suitable gain coefficients for the controller is known as tuning.
Turning the gain coefficients for a given controller determines the controller's bandwidth, which is a measure of responsiveness of the controlled mechanical system to changes in the control signal. The response of the controlled system to a signal from a controller is partially a function of the controller's bandwidth and the physical characteristics of the mechanical system (e.g., inertia, damping, friction, coupling stiffness, etc.). In general, higher controller bandwidths will result in faster output response to control signals, better disturbance rejection, and smaller tracking error. However, setting the bandwidth too high can introduce system instability by rendering the system more sensitive to noise and reducing closed-loop robustness (the ability of the system to remain stable over a range of reasonable system uncertainties and disturbances), particularly in the presence of inherently uncertain motor-load dynamics. For example, for lightly damped motion systems, excessively high controller bandwidth can over-excite the system resulting in undesirable oscillations, which in turn may cause controller saturation as the controller attempts to stabilize the resulting oscillations. The system can be rendered more stable by reducing the controller bandwidth, but at the expense of performance. For at least these reasons, controller bandwidth for a given motion control system must be carefully selected to achieve robust performance and robust stability.
The above-described is merely intended to provide an overview of some of the challenges facing conventional motion control systems. Other challenges with conventional systems and contrasting benefits of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein may become further apparent upon review of the following description.